The Road to Ostagar
by tinypinkmouse
Summary: Time seems to blur when you're on the road.


_All credit for this fic goes to unikorento (on Dreamwidth)._

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They say that the things you regret the most are the things you leave undone. But time seems to blur when you're on the road. You forget everything but the rhythm of the walk.

Faren should have asked more questions when he'd had the chance. Now he didn't know if they would ever receive any answers, and the unspoken words were like stones in his gut every time he lay down to sleep. He couldn't afford to lose sleep. He couldn't afford to lose anything anymore. It was an unnatural feeling to have. Barely a week ago he hadn't had anything to lose.

He closed his eyes in the near dark, but opened them again immediately as the tent shook. He reached for his dagger, but had barely time to grasp it before letting it go again. It was Dog, squeezing his way in, threatening to topple the entire structure. Faren didn't shoo him off, and the mabari lay down next to him. The earthy scent of him filled the tent, and his furry bulk felt hot against Faren's side.

"Stinking mutt..." he growled under his breath, and scratched Dog behind the ear. Dog sighed heavily, and went to sleep in that immediate way that only dogs and soldiers did.

Faren closed his eyes again, and again – as he had every night since the battle – he saw Duncan. He relived everything he could remember, from their first meeting in Orzammar where Duncan had saved his life, to their parting just before the battle. Faren and Alistair had complained at being handed such a menial task, he remembered that vividly. And the Joining. And meeting king Cailan. But everything that came before?

Time seems to blur when you're on the road.

The walk from Orzammar in the Frostbacks to the Wilds and Ostagar was by no means short, but walk it they had, Duncan and him. Faren wasn't able to say how long it had taken, or what he'd thought along the way. Part of him knew that there were no answers there, in those memories, but he wasn't able to stop digging, because the possibility still existed. Duncan could have said something, done something, prepared him in some way or left a clue, and if Faren could just remember it, then... Then what?

Then he would maybe know what to say at Redcliffe, when they reached the castle and asked to see the Arl. Then he wouldn't be just a duster in dented armour, making claims he had no place to make. Then the Arl would believe him, and everything would right itself. Maybe someone else would even take over, someone who had a chance.

Time seems to blur when you're on the road.

The fire crackled, and the iron pot that hung above it sizzled. Duncan puffed at a pipe thoughtfully while he poked at the frying meat with a stick.

"I don't remember you having a pipe" Faren heard himself saying incredulously. That was not the right thing to say. Faren wished he could take it back.

"I'm an experienced veteran," Duncan replied with a harrumphing kind of chuckle, and pointed the end of the pipe meaningfully at Faren. "This is what we do."

"You don't do anything. You're dead." That wasn't right either.

Duncan looked down, and then away, into the forest, like he hadn't heard Faren at all. Or better yet, like Faren wasn't even there. The camp smelled earthy, like it had just rained.

"We've lost, you know," he announced quietly. "There're only two Wardens left."

"There were never many of us," Duncan replied solemnly.

"But were there ever just two?"

"That does not change things," Duncan sighed. "Two, or two hundred Wardens, it is not important."

"To the Stone with you," Faren spat, frustrated, and got up off the log he was sitting on. "Do you expect me and Alistair to beat this Blight alone? I won't die like you, Duncan, I'd... I'd rather run." He stomped to Duncan's side, too close, but the old Warden didn't even flinch. "We've lost," he hissed again, but for all his anger, it came out like a plea.

A moment passed, and then another, with Faren breathing like a bull at Duncan's side, and Duncan frying meat for all the world like he'd been nothing but a traveling cook his entire life.

A man couldn't stare down someone who didn't stare back, and in the end Faren sank down on the log right next to Duncan, closer than he had ever been to him in his memories. The air went out of him, and he felt the weight of the stones in his gut once again.

The silence stretched, and Duncan flipped the meat.

"I count more tents than two," he said finally.

Faren hmphed, eyes on the fire.

"Some girl with visions of her Maker, a rock-man we found in a cage, and Morrigan. She's as likely to kill off Alistair as the darkspawn. Fine army, we make."

"And a dog," Duncan added.

"And a dog," Faren agreed, smiling grimly. "I'll get them all killed."

"They might not agree with you on that."

Faren glanced up, but Duncan's face was unreadable. Behind the beard, it was never easy to tell if he was smiling or not.

"There isn't enough of us, this can't end any other way," he insisted, but Duncan shook his head slowly.

"The power of the Grey Warden does not lie in numbers," he chided, and his voice was, for lack of a better word, gentle. "I did say that, before we came to Ostagar. For numbers, you must gather the army."

"How can I?" Faren snapped, and he felt one of the stones inside him disappear.

"You have the treaties."

Duncan spoke as if soothing a child, and Faren was of half a mind to break his nose for it. There wasn't a man alive that would talk to a dwarf in that way and walk away from it. But then, not many dwarves met men who were already dead.

"I know about the treaties," Faren growled in answer. "But how? They ignored your warnings, why would they listen to me and mine?"

Again, he felt lighter.

"You are a Grey Warden, Faren Brosca" Duncan said simply, finally putting his stick down to meet Faren's eyes. His face was serious, but not severe. And not worried.

"That isn't an answer," Faren said quietly, but for all his petulance he was hushed by the moment, and by Duncan's presence. In all his life, he didn't think he'd ever been looked at quite so intensely.

"No," Duncan agreed just as quietly. He rested his weathered hand on the back of Faren's neck, and leaned in. "It is something better." He placed a kiss, tenderly, on Faren's forehead, and whispered in his ear.

"It is hope."


End file.
